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Eleanor Roosevelt Biography
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Biography: Life of Eleanor Roosevelt
Born 1884, Died 1962
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt and wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was born on October 11, 1884 in New York City. Although she came from a well-know and socially prominent family, the young Eleanor Roosevelt would not participate in the social activities of her class. Instead she volunteered at a community center where she learned first hand the problems of the poor and how they lived. This early experience began a lifelong fight by Eleanor Roosevelt as an advocate on behalf of the poor, youth, African-Americans, women’s rights and human rights around the world.
On March 17, 1905 Eleanor Roosevelt married her distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The couple had six children. The early years of the marriage were difficult for Eleanor Roosevelt due to a domineering and controlling mother-in-law. Franklin Roosevelt’s entry into politics took the family away from this influence and freed Eleanor to become more involved with her children and to use her talents in her husband’s political career.
During World War I when Franklin Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Eleanor worked with the Red Cross and volunteered at naval hospitals. Following the war, Eleanor Roosevelt became active in several women’s rights organizations and actively fought for the right of women to vote and for better working conditions for women.
In 1921 Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio. The disease left his legs paralyzed. With the encouragement and active support of Eleanor, Franklin returned to politics. While supporting her husband, Eleanor Roosevelt pursued her own goals. To provide relief to the unemployed, she founded a nonprofit furniture factory and helped establish and taught at a private school for girls in New York.
When Franklin Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1928, Eleanor Roosevelt traveled where he could not go, inspecting state institutions and speaking on his behalf. The reports which Eleanor brought back helped to form the future polices of Franklin Roosevelt and further his political career.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, Eleanor Roosevelt drastically changed the role of the First Lady. She traveled extensively around the country reviewing conditions and lecturing on the objectives of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt’s program for recovery from the Depression. As First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt held weekly press conferences with women reporters and wrote a syndicated column called “My Day”. She wrote her column from 1935 until shortly before her death. She also persuaded her husband to create the National Youth Administration to provided financial aid for education and job training for young people.
Eleanor Roosevelt worked with the NAACP and the National Council of Negro Women to further civil rights for African-Americans. In 1939 she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution to protest the barring of Marian Anderson from performing at Constitution Hall.
Although a pacifist, during World War II Eleanor Roosevelt supported the war, visiting military hospitals and United States service men overseas.
Following the death of her husband, in December 1945 Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as a delegate to the first meeting of the United Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt was Chairman of the Human Rights Commission. As Chairman of the group she drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt also worked actively for the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948.
With the election of Dwight Eisenhower to the presidency in 1952, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the United States Delegation to the United Nations. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy reappointed her to the United States Delegation. President Kennedy also appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps and to the chairmanship of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.
Eleanor Roosevelt died on November 7, 1962 in New York City. She is buried next to Franklin D. Roosevelt at their estate at Hyde Park, New York.
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